Summary

Brother of Rachel Donelson, the wife of Pres. Andrew Jackson. Husband of Elizabeth Glasgow, the daughter of James Glasgow, the NC secretary of state who resigned after he was implicated in the land-fraud scheme that came to bear his name (i.e., the Glasgow Land Fraud). Donelson, the surveyor-general of NC and a major land speculator himself, was also heavily implicated in the scandal but was never brought to trial. Hundreds of East Tennesseans were suspected of having benefitted from falsified titles. Attorney James Woods Lackey, the brother of Wm. Lackey, Archibald Lackey, and Hannah Lackey Chamberlain, who was closely associated with Donelson, was, however, never charged in the case. Earlier, Stockley Donelson had served as speaker of the legislature of the ill-fated state of Franklin (c1785) and also as a prominent militia officer. Some researchers claim that Donelson's death occurred not in Jefferson Co., TN, but in Nashville or in Dixon Springs, Smith Co.